As I watch the “teenager” robins & brown thrashers obliterate the canopy of our fig tree in our backyard, I know the start of the school year is near. This year I’m feeling thankful that my girls have had the never-ending summer. Of course, I don’t know when they’ll actually be “back” in person, and it causes some anxiety about how I can or can’t balance work & home. However, I know this is unlike any other time in our history, so I’m going to relish in not waking up at 6 am every day for school, and I'll enjoy getting to snuggle with my girls in the mornings a while longer.
I’m thankful that the busyness of life has slowed, but I wish it wasn’t because so many are sick and so many have been lost.
I started reading this lovely book that we have started carrying called “Motherhood Realized,” which is a compilation from many parents from The Power of Moms deliberate mothering community. In one of the chapters, a mom talks about being inside of a dark tunnel to symbolize the hardships in life, but she asks why can’t there be light within the tunnel??
These days it is easy to feel like we are walking through a dark tunnel and there is no light at the end. We don’t know when this will end and it’s very hard to make the decisions while in the darkness of this tunnel because we’ve never been inside this tunnel before.
Then it reminded me that when I was a kid I loved tunnels!!! Tunnel slides at playgrounds, tunnels within mountains and my favorite tunnel of all was the underground tunnel to get to the Toledo Zoo. I could barely contain myself in that tunnel: it was cool and damp and your voice would echo against the walls, and you knew that when you got to the other side you would be in the most amazing world full of animals.
This week has been particularly difficult for me on the business side. I have been wondering if we need to scale back, heck, I’ve been wondering how long we can sustain solely being online and not being open to the public. I had a difficult chat with a couple of my shopkeepers about the "what ifs." I was feeling like the world was ending, I felt depleted, broken and wanted to give up. Thankfully, two days later I started my cycle and realized everything would be alright. Darn those hormones, they sneak up on my everytime.
Since then I keep imagining, that one day, at the end of this dark, lonely tunnel there will be joy & laughter and mamas & papas and babies and kiddos loving each other again in our space.
We just have to get there. Will you help us get there?
Love you all! Monira
P.S. I thought we’d reopen by appointment in August, but we’re still waiting for our state and surrounding counties to be in a better spot related to the percentage of positive cases. It pains me because I want to see you all SO much, working in an empty shop can be depressing to say the least!
Dear friends,